


Blood and Skin

by Attaining



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 00:42:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12829644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Attaining/pseuds/Attaining
Summary: Set during the torture years, Theon tries to hold on to his sense of self during endless torture, but everyone has a breaking point.TW: all the warnings. Physical, emotional, sexual violence. Trauma related dissociation. Torture. Ramsay Bolton.





	Blood and Skin

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I still don't own Game of Thrones. 
> 
> There was a significant jump between season 3 Theon and how we see Reek in season 4. I was interested in exploring more of the transition between Theon and Reek as adaptive coping to an unimaginable situation. Really, what other choice did Theon have but to dissociate to a child-like personality to endure the abuse? 
> 
> It's a long wait until season 8, so there's a lot of this kind of thing in my brain. 
> 
> Warning for emotional, physical, sexual violence. Seriously.

Theon groaned as a wave of nausea hit him, waking him from unconsciousness. His head swam. Everything was black; he'd been hooded the last time  _ he _ came. Weeks? No. Not weeks. He'd be thankfully dead if it was weeks. No water. His lips cracked and bled and his belly felt hollow. 

He couldn't remember how long he had been strapped to that fucking cross. His captor took to calling him Reek and peeling his skin to help him remember his new name. All Theon could think about was driving the flaying knife deep into those watery eyes. That and pain. He thought about pain a lot, about how to not think about pain, about how to pass out to avoid pain, about doing whatever  _ he _ wanted to stop the pain... 

Something popped in his shoulder and he yelled out. There was no dignified way to hang on a wooden cross. His arms always ached, leather cutting into his wrists.  His shoulders locked up and searing pain ran through his neck into his eyes. His head hung downward and he struggled to lift the weight of it the more time passed. Still, he tried to look highborn when moments of courage passed through him. He would bite and spit and make noises he only remembered from dying foxes and wolves. And then he would be beaten or burned or flayed and a small voice inside him would chastise him for making them angry. He should behave, learn his name.  _ He won't hurt you if you learn your name. _ That voice has been louder lately, but Theon tried to remember he was Ironborn, whatever that meant in a dungeon hundreds of miles from the sea. His father was waging war and left him here to this madman.  _ I can't produce heirs, what use am I to my father? _ Being a son wasn't enough. Never was. 

The space between his legs burned, the bandages soaked through with piss and blood. He couldn’t remember the last time the maester had changed them. Theon didn't mind: his stomach twisted in shame every time someone touched him there. Maybe his missing prick would fill with corruption and kill him with fever and bad blood. He thought often about death, too.

Theon heard a scream from somewhere in the dark and he squeezed his eyes shut despite himself. Everything scared him here.  _ Think of something else, anything else. _ How long had he been here? 

He guessed the madman was a Bolton after the flaying started and he systematically ruled out every other shit house in the North, but it wasn't Roose and he couldn't understand why he hadn't been brought to Robb for his head. Roose Bolton had a bastard, didn't he? Theon couldn't remember his name. Where was Robb now? 

His chest squeezed tightly and he was crying before he could stop himself. He cried more here than he ever recalled doing before. He shouldn't have thought of Robb and wolves and Starks. Gods the only thing he wanted was to see Robb, beg his forgiveness and die cleanly, easily. Robb was his real brother. He didn't try to beat the Stark way into him or kick him into sea water to swim to shore if he forgot his knots. He never needed to cry into Sansa’s shoulder or cling to Lady Catelyn’s robes after he limped home from the docks. 

Robb wouldn't need strike after strike and a kick to dislodge Theon’s head either. He would do it in one stroke and Theon wouldn't ever have to worry about bastards cutting him away piece by piece again. The gods could have him, do whatever they liked for his crimes. Anywhere would be better than here.

His breath hitched when a voice inside him said, "This is for your crimes. You should have listened to Yara, should have known your place. Now he'll hurt us."

He was shaking his head violently in the dark, but he knew the voice was right. He'd given up hope of escape after the last time. He'd gotten away from an old goaler after the leather gave way, made it halfway to the gates before  _ he _ stepped out in front of Theon with a cruel smile. The guards seized him; it wasn’t hard to stop a starved man, weak from blood loss and with a broken foot. The Bastard had patted Theon's cheek affectionately, calling him a slow learner. It was trick. He liked tricks. He'd have girls say they're Yara, here to save him, and kill them while he watched. He'd let Theon go just to catch him again, sometimes just to run into a room of flayed men. Sometimes they would be children.

Theon hated the children. It made him think of the Stark boys.  _ No, not the Stark boys. Farm boys. Poor orphans from Winterfell. _ Why had he listened to Dagmer? Desperate to keep his raided lands or angry they'd run away while he never had the courage to do the same?  _ Are you the dumbest cunt alive?  _

Theon's head hurt. Voices inside kept talking, commenting on his wretched fate and he felt sicker as the day (night?) passed. Food. Water.  _ Remember the feasts at Winterfell? _ Not as good as fresh oysters but the North didn't know anything about crab and clams or others gifts from the sea. They knew about wine, though. Robb, Theon and Jon had passed stolen skins around and measured who had the biggest prick on Theon's name day. (Theon did.) They jested who would bed the fairest women in the North. (Theon would. Used to. Wouldn't ever again.)

_ I chose wrong.  _ Was this what he deserved? He burned it all down when he paid the iron price for his only home. He'd wanted to die at the hands of the North, iron and salt to spill on the soil and they would remember him as a bloody traitor and nothing else. That was the only honorable choice at the time, not that he had any honor left by then. Now, what was this? It wouldn't end. He already begged for days and nights for death. He'd tried a few times, even. He refused food and drink. They forced it down his throat. He tried to slit his own neck when he seized a knife from the guard that let him down for the maester. The job was botched; he was saved and back on the cross soon enough. Promises of lands, titles, gold and women got him nowhere either.

Maybe Theon would call  _ him _ the Bastard of Bolton, sneer into his shit birthright, and see where that got him. It always pissed off Jon well enough. Snow.  _ He'd love this. Theon Greyjoy tortured and gelded at the hands of another bastard. _ No, even Jon would have taken his head. He was nothing else if not insufferably honorable. 

He remembers he told Maester Luwin that hunting for Bran and Rickon was just a game. The Bastard hunted him, called it a game. He liked games. Theon played many games with him and he always lost. Theon beheaded Ser Rodrik, cut the throats of those boys and burned them. The Bastard liked to cut him, burn him with hot pokers, peel back his skin... At least they died quickly. Theon wasn't so lucky. Theon had betrayed Robb and the boy who was the bastard had betrayed him. He told Theon stories of a loyal lad from Salt Cliff who missed his Prince. Then he led Theon back to the cross. Theon had taken Winterfell and this bastard had taken him.

_ You did this to yourself, Theon Greyjoy. You always get us into trouble. _

He really wished that voice would stop and let him suffer in silence. This wasn't going to end, no matter how much he paid. He was beyond the gold and the iron. He paid in skin and blood. 

Suddenly, light blinded him as the hood disappeared. He struggled past the pain in his eyes, trying to focus. He smelled the torches lit nearby, the ever-present scent of nightsoil and rot. A cold hand caressed his chin, looking at either side of his face. Theon shuddered and shrank away, vision still blurred. He thought he heard someone mutter about fever.

Maybe the gods heard him after all.

"If you're hoping to die before we're through, you still haven't learned. There are no gods that can hear you. Well, except me, of course," a playful voice whispered in his ear. His vision started to clear. It was him, The Bastard. Theon's cheeks burned in shame as a hot trickle of piss trailed down his leg, his eyes wet with tears. He felt like a coward, weak. 

_ It rhymes with weak, our name. It's safer, do what he says. _ That voice felt like a scream. 

The Bastard smiled, eyes on that space between Theon's legs, pants soaked through. His eyes roamed up Theon's body slowly, like he was drinking in a new woman. He always looked at Theon that way, like they were lovers. Like Theon had looked at Ros. The Bastard looked so proud of his work. "Now, what is your name?"

Theon swallowed thickly, staring half-lidded back at a toothy grin. He was going to have to stare at this bastard face for the rest of his life, not even able to scratch that fucking itching mess he had left after the gelding knife. He was going to keep shitting his pants and feeding the rats that crawled over his feet and up his legs. He would eat, desperate for whatever molded bread and rotted meat they put to his mouth. He wouldn’t walk or run or hold a bow or spill his seed inside a warm cunt ever again, but he would bleed and cry. Theon doubted even his ass would be safe much longer from whatever depravity crossed this bastard’s mind. He would run out of fingers and toes to flay and lose.  _ My name is Reek. Reek, remember, Reek. _

Today was as good as any to be an idiot, his one last chance to escape this dungeon with his mind intact. Theon licked his lips and grinned, “Not fucking Snow, anyway.”

Theon almost laughed at the flush of red that spread over The Bastard’s face, the snarl that replaced the grin and the look of murderous rage he saw pass through those eyes. There was a queer muscle that twitched in his jaw as The Bastard regained his composure. 

“I’m tired of seeing that smile. Do you still think you’re a Lord? Pissing and shitting yourself, snot on your face while you cry for days and you think you’re above a bastard?” He pulled a hammer from his belt, shaking his head as if pitying Theon. “No, no, no, Reek. This won’t do at all. I know! I’ve been teaching you your name, but I forgot to teach you mine.”

He laid the hammer gently on the table and picked up a pair of pliers. He politely put his hands behind his back to introduce himself. “I am Ramsay Snow, natural son of Roose Bolton, Lord of the Dreadfort and Warden of the North.”

Theon really did want to shit himself when he saw the pliers, but he was still hoping he might get out of this dead. He had to hope for something here and death would be the greatest mercy. “No wonder I couldn’t remember your name, some shit bastard of the lowest house in the North. How’s your Lord father?” 

Suddenly Theon was choking and he was staring at the ceiling of the Dreadfort dungeon. Had he said Warden of the North? How…? Little black spots in his vision interrupted his thoughts. “Now, Reek, that isn’t the proper way to address your Lord and Master. Let’s start with my name.”

“Sn… Snow,” Theon choked out. The Bastard clucked his tongue at Theon as if correcting a small child. 

“You think you’re clever.” The plier was in his hands again and Theon coughed and gasped wildly. “You think maybe I’ll kill you if you insult my name. But you’re not very smart, Reek. I’ve already told you, you’re in training. Have you ever broken a dog before? The kennelmaster is very good, but my bitches, they only learn if you’re hard with them. Wild beasts, my dogs. They start biting and lashing. But they learn. There’s only one Master, only one person who controls whether there’s pain or fresh meat. When they’re good, when they’re loyal, there’s meat every day.”

The Bastard had him by the jaw, forcing his fingers between his teeth until Theon had no choice but to open. When had the guards appeared? How had he missed this? They held his head still, prying his mouth open wider. Tears poured fresh from his eyes. “And when they’re not? Well, this will give you an idea.”

Theon screamed as blood filled his mouth, copper on his tongue and the sickening scrape of metal on tooth.  _ It won’t work, he won’t kill us. Do what he says, do what he says. Remember your name. Remember his name.  _ How did he know everything? The voice was yelling to go away, go away before Theon gets into more trouble. As Ramsay’s pitying eyes filled his vision, he knew he was done. There was always a point where he gave in. It took less and less. 

“I’ll only take your teeth if I need to, but I’ll let you choose the next one, eh? Now what is my name.”

“...Ramsay,” he said in defeat, feeling numbness wash over him. But his mouth was forced open again and another scream and tooth were pulled from him. Ramsay ran the pliers over Theon’s stomach and that dying wolf sound left him again as the raw patch of flayed muscle contracted against the metal. Wrong answer. What did he want? He tried, “...Lord Ramsay.” 

Two teeth later and he threw up the blood he’d swallowed. 

Another tooth and he was desperate and begging, shuddering against his bonds. He wasn't supposed to say please anymore so he said he would do anything, anything at all to make it stop. This was life now, taking piece by piece, endless pain.

One more gone and he could see someone who looked like him bleeding out on a cross while The Bastard lifted the prisoner’s chin. “You’re not quite a dog, Reek. You’re certainly not a man. But you could be a loyal worm if you learned your place. Would you like that, Reek, to be my good, loyal pet? To be let down from the cross and rest on the ground?”

It was surreal to float above the room as The Bastard caressed the prisoner’s face that looked so much like him. It must be him, some part, a part that looked up with wild, haunted blue eyes flooded with tears that nodded over and over again. He looked so young, a child trying to please an angry father. “I’ll be good.”

He’d said that to his brothers, years and years ago, when he spilled the ale all over everywhere and Maron had too much to drink. He begged and tried to make it right, but his brothers always believed a strong hand made an Ironborn. Is that the look he’d had on his face, then? When he promised to Ned Stark he wouldn’t run away, lest Ned need to bring that great sword down on his neck? Theon had always wanted to be good, but he was never quite right at it. 

“Are you sure? You’ve been very bold lately. Trying to escape, thinking you’re a Lord instead of just meat. Calling your Lord Master a bastard.”

“I’m… I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll do what you want. I’m no Lord, I’m… I’m Reek. I’m Reek. You’re The Master and I’m your Reek.” 

The Bastard broke into a slow smirk, as if he’d won something he’d been waiting for. He whistled and the men that had recaptured him after his first escape stepped forward again. “Very good, Reek. But, you’re going to have to prove you’re loyal. I have to punish you for your mistakes. How else will you learn?”

“As, as you say, Master.” 

“You must remember how to address your betters.” The room seemed farther away and more distant, everything changing to a dream. He watched the flaying knife slide easily into his ribs, too deep for flaying, a stabbing, and then pull back to peel away inches and inches of skin. It slid underneath his flesh and tore away his right nipple. It was in fog and he was numb to it all, despite the person who kept screaming and screaming, begging forgiveness.

“You see, in the Dreadfort, the men have a…. particular way they like to handle runaways. You remember, don’t you? When you stole the horse and killed the others. I had to bring you back.”

He heard another voice telling him to go away, don’t look, it wasn’t safe. He remembered this voice, from Pyke, around his father, brothers and uncles. Not around Yara, never around his mother. Was Yara alive? He remembers a girl dying, the Bastard made him watch. He said it was Yara. Everything blurred together. 

The Bastard had a hand buried in his hair, forcing him to look over the soldiers. “Look at them, Reek. You killed their friends. That’s what Theon Greyjoy did. Are you Theon Greyjoy?”

It must have been him who slurred, mouth sputtering out blood, “No, not Theon. Reek.”

“Good, you’re learning. But I have to make sure. I can’t have Theon Greyjoy coming around and giving you the wrong idea about yourself. Now, they’re going to do some… well, dreadful things to you, really,” he said with a laugh, lovingly ruffling his hair. “I’d love to stay and watch, but I need to act as Lord of the Dreadfort. I want you to remember, Reek, something very important. Every time you forget who you are, that you’re mine, I want you to remember today. Remember what happens when you’re not loyal, when you think you’re Theon Greyjoy. Count your teeth, your fingers and toes, and just think that you’re about to be reunited with a hard cock once again.”

The men laughed and The Bastard stepped away from him. As he walked away, The Bastard said, “When you’re done, take him to the Maester before he bleeds out and leave him in the kennels. He’ll make a fine bitch after today.”

As the men stepped closer to him, fumbling at the straps at his wrists, he felt the last part of himself slip away, leaving that young face, the scared voice, to whatever of his flesh was left. His body fell to the floor, unable to hold his weight, and a soldier began to remove his belt. He finally agreed, this was safer, and Theon Greyjoy took his leave. 


End file.
